How Many Words Are There in the Harry Potter Book Series?

The Harry Potter books are popular, and once someone reads the first book in the series, they often end up reading the entire series. What isn’t often considered is the sheer number of words a person who reads the entire series consumes. For those who like to keep track of their reading word count — or those who want to encourage their kids to read more — the Harry Potter books series is an excellent way to do so.

So, how many total words are there in the Harry Potter series? The answer may surprise you. The total number of words for the Harry Potter series is over 1 million words. That’s correct. If you want your kids to read over one million words in a short period of time, one of your best chances is to get them interested in the Harry Potter book series.

In order to reach the 1 million plus word count, it’s necessary to read all seven books which are part of the series. These include the following:

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stones

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Not all the books are the same when it comes to the number of words in them. The book with the least total number of words is Sorcerer’s Stones, while the book with the most words is Order of the Phoenix. Only 2 of the 7 Harry Potter books came in at under 100,000 words (Sorcerer’s Stones and Chamber of Secrets) which happened to be the first two books in the series. Only one book (Order of the Phoenix) topped 200,000 words, but there were two books that came close with more than 190,000 words (Goblet of Fire and Deathly Hallows). When added all together, the Harry Potter books contain 1,084,170 words. Below you’ll find the total word count numbers for each book in the Harry Potter series:

How many words are in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stones? There are 76,944 words.

How many words are in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets? There are 85,141 words.

How many words are in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban? There are 107,253 words.

How many words are in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire? There are 190,637 words.

How many words are in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix? There are 257,045 words.

How many words are in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince? There are 168,923 words.

How many words are in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows? There are 198,227 words.

While knowing the total number of words in the Harry Potter series isn’t going to convince anyone to read all the books, knowing the total word count is an excellent way to encourage kids to read more. Reading over 1 million words is a great accomplishment which can be celebrated in addition to the fun and adventure that comes with reading the books. Now you know you can congratulate anyone who has read all the Harry Potter books of reading more than a million words.

Well, that sure is a lot of words to read and so many people read all the books. That sounds like more words than I would’ve ever thought. I’m glad that I can say that I’ve read over 1 million words from these books.

As a teacher, this series is so great to get students interested in reading! They get hooked on the fist book and you know the are going to read over1 million words because they won’t stop at the first book. It’s such a magical series!

I loved the Harry Potter series. I wish the books would never end it was so much fun reading. Realizing that the entire series is over 1 million words read is great trivia to have. I bet most kids ha no idea they are reading that many words. It’s great for all those who believe that reading is important!

Thank you so much for posting this! What is great is that when you have a good book in your hands it doesn’t matter what the word count is, but it does feel cool to be able to say, “I’ve read over a million words!”

I LOVE Harry Potter!!! I think it’s so great that kids read over 1 million words when they read the Harry Potter book series. What a wonderful way to lean to love reading!!! Everyone should know the joy of this world and the hidden magic in it I hope everyone reads this series

I wish the books were even longer. Every time I picked up a Harry Potter book, I’m always disappointed when the book and its. I wish he would go on and on and on and on and on. I think it’s interesting that if you read the entire series you read over 1 million words, but I think most of us who are Harry Potter fans would read much more than this if given the chance. I just love getting lost in the Harry Potter world when I’m reading those books. This is the order of my favorite books

Sorcerer’s Stones.
Order of the Phoenix
Prisoner of Azkaban.
Deathly Hallows
Goblet of Fire
Half-Blood Prince
Chamber of Secrets

To me, the fourth book is the most interesting, because I’m obsessed with tournament related plot (influences of too much shounen manga).
Death Hallows is somehow the least interesting. Not sure why. I guess it’s probably because the plot going dark and no more fun time like in the previous books.

I loved reading Harry Potter is well. I think these were the first books that really got me excited about reading and I can never thank Harry Potter enough for helping me to love his world and reading. This is the order of my favorite books.

I recently started reading Harry Potter too. I love the first two books and I’m so excited about reading all the rest. I hope that you love the books is much as I am loving them. I’m happy to see that there are still some people who are just learning about the magic in these books just like I am!

I think Harry Potter should be required reading for everyone in grade school. If this were the case, a lot more people would like to read. Why don’t schools assign reading that kids would actually like rather than boring stuff that we have no interest in reading? Everyone LOVES Harry Potter and even if there are over 1 million words in the book, kids will still read it.

Not all. I know some people (including myself) who don’t enjoy the books as much, but it would be nice if teachers actually assigned the series for homework. My teacher might because she’s obsessed with Harry Potter and it would get a lot of people to love reading.

Does anyone have book recommendations that are similar to Harry Potter that are also worth reading? I loved the HP series, and have actually read it three times now! And I still want more. if you know of other books similar that I would like, please tell them to me.

I think it’s great that the Harry Potter books in combination are over 1 million words. I think that if you asked most kids if they would read 1 million words they would think you were crazy, but if you just hand them the Harry Potter books they would read through them all over a summer. That’s just crazy! Harry Potter is so good that kids will read 1 million words over a summer. That just goes to show how great these books are!

I personally think that the harry Potter books are overrated. Sure, they are decent, but not nearly as good as everyone seems to make them out to be. Kudos if it helps to get kids to read, but there are far better books out there and I wish that kids didn’t focus so intently on just this series.

People have their own opinions… You might not like some other books other people list off that they think are better than HP, but others might. So that argument’s useless.
And also:
A Court of Thorns and Roses
A Court of Mist and Fury
Throne of Glass (series)
Scorpio Races
Anna Dressed in Blood
Girl of Nightmares
Tricks (and Traffick, the 2nd book)
Triangles (and Tilt, the 2nd book)
What If? (by Randall Munroe)

This is interesting to know just for all the Harry Potter fans out there who, like me, read them all. Must say it doesn’t feel like I read that number of words because the books are so entertaining. I guess that’s a sign of a really great book — you read 1 million words and it doesn’t seem like there were enough. You want even more.

The thing that everyone misses is that it’s not the number of words written, but the words that are written. It’s an interesting book and series and that is why people read them. It has nothing to do with the actual number of words written.

1 million words is a lot more than I would have estimated are in the Harry Potter book series. It’s a great number to encourage kids to read, but I’m also impressed with any author who can write over 1 million words that people actually want to read. That’s a pretty impressive feat for any writer.

I just finished the Harry Potter series and I loved it. I think I may be the biggest Harry Potter fan around now. They are such wonderful books and I can understand why everybody loves them so much. The fact that I read over 1 million words is just a bonus. I don’t know what I’m going to do now that I finished all the books. I love them, but I’m sad that I don’t have any more to read.

In order from least to most (since that was the information I needed) and I thought somebody else might need it too:

7. The Sorcerer’s Stones has 76,944 words.
6. The Chamber of Secrets has 85,141 words.
5. The Prisoner of Azkaban has 107,253 words.
4. The Half-Blood Prince has 168,923 words.
3. The Goblet of Fire has 190,637 words.
2. The Deathly Hallows has 198,227 words.
1. The Order of the Phoenix has 257,045 words.

I don’t think the number of words matter. What matters is if the books speak to you. If you read them and leave feeling better than when you began the book, then they are a success. The number doesn’t matter compared to that.

You shouldn’t base what you read on the number of words in that reading. You should base it on whether or not the reading is good or not. If something is good, you’ll read not worrying about the number of words. You;ll simply want to read more. That’s what happened with me and Harry Potter. Don’t stop before you even start!

Well I think that there should have been 700000 words or something like that because of all the magical ties of the number seven. I’m saying this because I was on Pottermore this morning and I was reading that segment. If anyone does find out that the amount of words in the series has something to do with the number seven PLEASE tell me!!!